Women Out of Control

Well you can see their point, of course. Men in shorts darting around kicking a ball – I mean to say. If they let women in to watch that kind of thing, not much football would get played, know what I mean? I mean, whoarrrr, right? Obviously. So if they let women in, then all they would get is, the men would come running out and do a spot of kicking and in thirty seconds flat each man would have forty or fifty women on top of him, and those shorts would be nowhere to be seen. Whoarrrrrrr.

That’s how it is here of course. In the West. There’s no such thing as football here, there are just these abortive occasions where men in shorts start to play football and then before you can say ‘Play ball!’ there’s just a lot of rutting going on. Not all that sporting. But you know how women are – one look at men’s knees and they can’t keep their clothes on. I think there used to be football, once upon a time, but I suppose that was before the Pankhursts or Betty Friedan or something.

It’s the thing about the other men in shorts that I don’t quite get.

Women can watch football broadcast on Iranian television and they can attend basketball and volleyball matches even though they too involve men dressed in shorts.

The thing about television seems quite cruel. It must drive them almost insane, poor things. Do they try to hump the television itself, I wonder? But it’s the part about attending basketball and volleyball matches that I really don’t understand. Why is that allowed? Why is it okay to have basketball and volleyball matches interrupted and ruined by throngs of whimpering women dragging the players’ shorts off? What’s the deal – Iranians like football but not basketball and volleyball? So they want football to go ahead and be played all the way to the end without being sidetracked to a copulation-fest, while with basketball and volleyball they figure it’s okay either way? That must be it, but I think it’s a little unfair to basketball and volleyball. But I prefer football myself, so I guess I can understand it.

Members of the clergy say it is wrong for men and women to look at each other’s bodies, even if they have no intention of taking pleasure from it.

Well of course it is. And what do they mean about no intention of taking pleasure from it? What planet is that supposed to be on? The one where women go to soccer matches and tennis matches and squash tournaments and swimming competitions and volleyball and basketball games and marathons and bicycle races with no intention of taking pleasure from slavering over men’s bodies? The one where women don’t even notice those tight tight tight lycra shorts? That planet? Haaaaaaa –

Sorry, but you have to admit, that’s funny.

One MP said, if the reformists had tried this, there would have been suicide bombers protesting on the streets of Teheran.

Protesting? Suicide bombers protesting? In the sense of blowing themselves up? Or just in the usual sense of marching and setting fire to things? But if it’s that – do suicide bombers announce themselves beforehand? Do they have like suicide bomber clubs, or uniforms, or regalia of some sort? Banners, maybe? I’d have thought they didn’t, I’d have thought the idea was to conceal the fact that one was a suicide bomber until the very instant when that fact was made apparent by an explosion. Because, see, if you go around beforehand saying you’re a suicide bomber and protesting things, there is some remote chance that someone might stop you going on being a suicide bomber.

But, maybe not, with everyone so busy keeping women out of football stadiums. First things first, ya know?

Ian Gibson wrote (I presume seriously): “I’ve been with you all the way so far with your commentary on Islam, but you’re losing me by focusing on trivialities like this. Okay, okay. The Mullahs are loons. I get it.”

But this issue may not be regarded as trival by the women who have their liberty curtailed by these inconsistent, illogical and irrational rules.

Ian B Gibson, yes the macro view is important, but so are the details of tyranny. Iran is making a statement knowing it will get headlines while half the planet is getting ready for the World Cup. Could be viewed in your contextualisation as mere sabre rattling, but it could also be viewed as ghastly attack on widely held cultural view that sport can – at least temporarily – transcend the geopolitical mires of the times. Which is why the Taliban were quick to use newly-built sports stadiums (built in the 90s on western redevelopment money after the Soviets pulled out) for public beheadings. Not sport. How far does it have to go before trivialities become the currency of guilt ?

“Iran is making a statement…Could be viewed in your contextualisation as mere sabre rattling, but it could also be viewed as ghastly attack on widely held cultural view that sport can…transcend the geopolitical mires of the times.”

How is ‘Iran’ attacking that view? I thought the whole point was that the nutter Ahmadinejad actually lifted the ban.

It’s called progress. Surely some of the more elderly here can remember a time when “protest” meant things like “I’m cancelling my subscription” or “I won’t vote for you.” Nowadays, many journalists in the formerly enlightened West see nothing outrageous in its meaning “I’m going to kill you and myself and anyone else who happens to be in the vicinity.”

Personally, I don’t consider the views of anyone who thinks that’s even faintly legitimate to be even faintly legitimate.

PM, yes hasty of me, but I guess the recent additional 200 police put on the streets of Tehran to enforce deeply rerstrictive and utterly mysoginist new ‘laws’ restricting women’s rights sent me reeling. Even the bland BBC website describes this latest move merely as ‘populist’.